Water Shortages Threaten Electrical Grid

The Scripps Institution of Oceanography says there's a 50% chance that within the next decade the 2,080-megawatt Hoover Dam could receive too little water to produce power.

Growing demand for water in the West, combined with reduced runoff due to climate change, is causing a net deficit of nearly 1 million acre-feet of water per year throughout the Colorado River system, which feeds the dam.

Researchers at the institution say water levels in Lake Mead could fall too low for power production by 2017 and run completely dry by 2021.